Spec me a cheap quad core tablet

[doopydug]

Haven't bought one in ages and need to get back into tablet gaming again. Just broke the screen on my phone and cant afford a new one plus I would prefer a 7" screen.

Want good power though as I wont be changing it for a while - is it possible to get a quad core 7" tablet for under £100?

[AETAaAS]

Don't be fooled into thinking a quad core automatically makes it better, there are some proper rubbish quad cores in some Chinese tablets, they use slow ARM designs and even worse GPUs.

I'd strongly recommend getting a refurbished Nexus 7 from Tesco at £120. It's a Nexus so it stays up to date, it has a fast chip, great screen and good battery. It feels nice to hold and it's going to be a solid tablet for some while.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ASUS-GOOGL...00525324066%26

[doopydug]

Thanks for the reply. Just seen this from another forum and it claims to be as powerful as the Nexus - http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...pf_rd_i=468294

I know its no Nexus, really, but I cant afford £120. Gonna give this one a try out - at least its on Amazon and, if it isn't any good, returns are easy.

[DanceswithUnix]

Don't be fooled into thinking a quad core automatically makes it better, there are some proper rubbish quad cores in some Chinese tablets, they use slow ARM designs and even worse GPUs.

I'd strongly recommend getting a refurbished Nexus 7 from Tesco at £120. It's a Nexus so it stays up to date, it has a fast chip, great screen and good battery. It feels nice to hold and it's going to be a solid tablet for some while.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ASUS-GOOGL...00525324066%26

I thought most of the cheap Chinese stuff was A9 based these days, like the Rockchip 3188:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockchip#RK31xx_series

Mind you, I would rather be paying for 2GB of RAM and an IPS panel and quad core. My son has a cheap dual core tablet and the low 800x480 panel is what lets it down, the performance is fine. My daughter has a slightly more expensive one, just to get a better display.

[AETAaAS]

I thought most of the cheap Chinese stuff was A9 based these days, like the Rockchip 3188:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockchip#RK31xx_series

Mind you, I would rather be paying for 2GB of RAM and an IPS panel and quad core. My son has a cheap dual core tablet and the low 800x480 panel is what lets it down, the performance is fine. My daughter has a slightly more expensive one, just to get a better display.

I've tried a couple cheap Android tablets in the market and the 800x480 seven inchers are underwhelming as you say as far as the display goes but at least the CPU can keep things smooth at that resolution. Depending on the use case, it might not even matter. If your son is playing things like Angry Birds or Bridge Architect or other similar games, even these cheap tablets are enough.

I'm not sure if they are all A9s but even then, the software implementation can let the side down. My current tablet is the Acer A700 which has a 1920x1200 screen and many people initially ascribed the system lag to the resolution despite the Tegra 3 chip. However, Asus used the same proc in their Infinity (also 1920x1200) and it had no lag. It was clocked a little faster but the Acer lagged even on the launcher. It was later fixed with Android 4.2 but it demonstrated to me how manufacturers could massage the system to be as smooth as possible. (Or maybe Acer molested Android too much and it lagged as a result, I can't say for sure)

There were also MIPS based tablets which couldn't run a number of Play apps because of the instruction set but they may have gone at this point.

[DanceswithUnix]

The kids play pocket Minecraft, so quite CPU intensive. That and watch YouTube videos.

My daughter's one is this: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/7-ver...ly-bean-dual-c

The the slight increase in resolution to 1024x600 makes a massive difference to usability.

Having a look around, I see some of the cheap quad core tablets use an Allwinner A31, which uses A7 cores so they will be a bit slower than the usual A9 ones. Still not bad though.

I did cringe at a single bay NAS drive advertised as 1.2GHz cpu. Yeah sure, a 1.2GHz ARM V5. That's really not very fast

[dcwt2010]

I personally would go for a used N7 for that budget. Personally I think it's a false economy to get ones that cheap unless it's for a kid who's going to break it by next year.

[wendymadden]

This has 7-inches 5-points capacitive touch-screen display, 1.6 GHz Dual Core CPU, Mali 400 4 Core GPU and 1GB of DDR3 RAM, 8GB of available built-in memory, 2 MP rear auto-focus camera and runs on runs on Android v4.1 (Jelly Bean) OS.

[stifnec]

Try Asus Memo Pad HD 7. works great and very nice